Could the ‘vulture restaurants’ be a lifeboat for the recently rediscovered bone-skippers (Diptera: Piophilidae)?

Abstract

The European bone-skippers Thyreophora cynophila and Centrophlebomyia furcata (Diptera: Piophilidae) had been considered as globally extinct or extinct in Europe, respectively, until their recent rediscovery in Spain. Improved hygienic conditions in livestock management and disposal of large carcasses (the preferred breeding sites for the bone-skippers) have been implicated as the main cause for their disappearance. The decline of many European avian scavenger populations in the last centuries has also been attributed to the same cause, which has promoted the creation of the commonly named ‘vulture restaurants’. Although these supplementary feeding stations are important to support scavenging bird populations, the present work demonstrates that they provide a guaranteed supply of food for rare necrophagous species like the European bone-skippers which have recently been rediscovered.